[Stoves] Baking with alcohol stove

[Cynthia Durham]

Dear Professor Anderson:
   
  I read with much interest your experience with the alcohol stove.  I thought I might volunteer myself to assist with any other cooking experiments that you might wish to employ.  
   
  I live very close to the land and am experience in cooking with wood and making do without electricity.  In fact, the first two years that we live out here we went without electricity or running water.  Most Americans today have never had that experience.  I can identify with people overseas and in South and Central America that live close to their animals and without basic utilities.  I can also tell you from a practical point of view if these experiments in stoves will work or not.  Until you have had a large wood grill for your primary cooking stove for years you cannot really relate to the women in these villages and what they must overcome just to feed their families. 
   
  On another note, I would like to know if I can obtain some of this wood vinegar that has been being talked about lately.   It sounds like a very interesting product, particularly relating to livestock(hogs).
   
  I hope that I can be of some use to your projects.  I read these emails with great curiosity and interest, and the dialog give me great hope for the world.  
   
  Sincerely,
   
  Cynthia L. Durham (Cindy)
  28 Dawson Lane
  Gordonsville, TN  38563
  615-423-1316

"Paul S. Anderson" <psanders at ilstu.edu> wrote:
  Stovers,

An experience today. I have a Coleman CampOven that is basically a 25 x 25 x 25
cm (10 inch cube) of sheet metal with a door in front, heat inlet at the bottom,
and vent holes in the top (and some out the sides). The heat is direct (the
flue gases go directly through the oven). No insulation, and I was in my
garage at 8 deg C (48 deg F), so I was loosing much heat from the oven to the
environment.

I placed a Lily burner (alcohol burner) under the camp oven. A second Lily
burner was available, used for maybe 2 minutes, but was giving too much heat. 
I had four different types of thermometers inside the oven, and they all gave
different readings most of the time (with range of even 100 deg F between high
and low readings), but they were also in different parts of the oven, so I was
estimating the actual temperature. Took about 5 minutes to bring it up to 400
to 500 deg F.

Four bisquettes (not cookies, but bread-like) were placed inside the hot oven. 
About 9 or 10 minutes later, they were cooked and my wife and I had lunch.

Alcohol (ethanol) will give a black soot on the bottom of the bottom piece of
the oven, but no soot deposits were seen anywhere inside the oven. And no
smokey-ness or fuel flavor in the food.

I was attending the fire the entire 18 minutes of the cooking task. That was
necessary because I am still learning how to control the heat with the small
Lily burners, and because the oven has no insulation to stabilze the heat. But
I do know that I easily could have burned the food. NO trouble getting enough
heat from the alcohol burners.

Next cooking tasks with alcohol are to deep fry (make french fries) and to cook
beans for 2 hours or more.

In terms of quality of heat, alcohol can compete very well with LPG or natural
gas or other liquid fuels. The issues are price of the fuel per unit of heat,
and having the stove pieces available.

Paul
-- 
Paul S. Anderson, Ph.D., Geography professor - Emeritus
Telephone: USA-309-452-7072 (residence and office)
Internet site: www.ilstu.edu/~psanders
For my gasifier stoves info, go to:
http://bioenergylists.org/contributors#Paul_Anderson





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